Investigation of the relationship between heart rate and functional class in pulmonary hypertension

ABSTRACT

The utility of a non-linear mixed effects model to model heart rate is examined. The heart rate acceleration is derived as a parameter from this model. The relationship between different potential measures of disease severity including heart rate acceleration is examined. Our study is focused on heart rate variability (HRV), heart rate acceleration (HRA), oxygen saturation (SaO2) and the six-minute walk distance (6MWD) as well as their relationship to WHO functional class. The results and conclusions are derived from data were collected by the Children Hospital of Colorado.

KEYWORDS:

• heart rate acceleration
• heart rate slope
• non-linear mixed effects models
• Heart rate variability
• receiver operating characteristic curve